Best Film of the Last 100 Years?

From the desk of Ned P. Rauch:

Here’s the deal: It Might Get Loud is the best film I’ve seen in ages. If you’ve heard or read anything negative about this movie, forget it. Whoever said or wrote it is nuts. It's just Jimmy Page, Jack White and The Edge talking about music, guitars and their backgrounds and, here and there, playing together.

A word on that last bit: Ostensibly, it’s the premise of the film. Three kings of three different eras get together and jam. They don’t, actually, spend a lot of time trading licks. And when they do, sometimes it’s a bit awkward. But of course it would be! It’s always awkward playing with people at first. Just because these guys are aces doesn’t mean they’re not human, too. Sometimes, though, their playing shines. The trio takes on “In My Time of Dying,” the great Zeppelin tune from “Physical Graffiti,” and smokes it. The coolest thing, though, is that each one is playing slide and each one wears his slide on a different finger: Page has it on his ring finger, Jack White on his pinky, and Edge on his middle finger. That the cameras pick up on this (without dwelling on it unnecessarily) fits perfectly with something Page says at the start of the film: Every player approaches the guitar differently.

Page, by the way, seems in great shape. He’s totally at peace, and his inability to hide his excitement while listening to a record of Link Wray’s “Rumble,” the song, Page says, that provided his first musical epiphany, is endearing. There’s wonderful footage of him as a teenager playing in a skiffle band on TV. He tells the host he’s studying biology. Throughout, he comes across as a kindly god and reveals the essence of a good band: passion, honesty and competence.

White is more of a live wire, casting his musical approach, his playing style, his tastes—everything—as a battle. He plays weird, beat-up old guitars because they make him work harder, and hard work, he says, is key. Ease gets in the way of a lot of art. You have to fight the guitar, he tells a kid, and you have to win. There’s a great moment in which White describes his bedroom growing up: seven feet by seven feet and packed so full of musical equipment—two drum sets!—that he tossed out his bed and slept on a piece of foam on the floor.

And Edge, well, at first I thought he’d be the weak link. His dependence on effect pedals and electronic wizardry I saw as a crutch. And it’s totally anathema to White’s way of thinking. But it turns out Edge is aware of the criticism, and he’s not at all defensive about it. He just loves the idea of inventing sounds. And it’s fascinating to hear him talk about how a standard E chord is too full of tones for his taste. Too rich. The way he plays it, which he shows, cuts out a few notes. It’s more direct, he says, which is interesting given the indirect route his notes take through all those effects pedals on their way to his amplifier.

There are a few missteps. The bit focusing on each of the musicians’ first serious guitars falls flat when it gets to Page, talking briefly about a Strat, a guitar with which he’s never been associated, and failing to mention how he got it. Edge’s story about his Explorer and White’s about his Kay, by contrast, are terrific, Excaliber-like tales.

Oh well, you can’t get everything right. But this movie comes close. I won’t say any more, as I don’t want to ruin any surprises. Just go see it. Finally, guitar geeks have their own Citizen Kane.

(Movie poster comes from another Web site that stole it from someone else.)